Search

It’s always interesting to see what occurs to films that are released in the summer. Generally, you have your slew of box office hits like The Avengers; your box office poison, like Battleship, and movies in-between.

Every summer, without fail, there will be winners and losers. But is it always fair which movies do amazing at the box office and which flop so hard that even the studios are embarrassed?

Of course not. Welcome to Hollywood.

I dunno about you, but I know I thought this looked like a WINNER. (Image from: hollywood.com)

Although there are a lot of movies that were released this year, I’m focusing on White House Down, After Earth, The Lone Ranger, and Pacific Rim.

Why these movies? Because A) they were released around the same time, looking for a similar audience (same time being like, late May- early July as opposed to early May like Iron Man 3). B) I’m not including the animated films, even if Despicable Me 2 kicked The Lone Rangers ass. And C) Because I want to, go away.

I realized that many people look at film reviews as whether they should spend a dime on the film at all. Some strange people (like me) actually go for the humorous recaps. I decided to put the opinion first and recap second, just so you don’t have to scroll through endless snark, wondering to yourself if I will ever get to the point.

Also this is long. Beware.

This scene never happens. Just fyi.

Jack the Giant Slayer: 6/10.

Metacritic Rating: 51%

See if: You’re a fan of the cast, you’re looking for some mindless fun, or you’re curious what a film that costs $195 million looks like.

Jack and the Giant Slayer is an obvious attempt to cash on a recent trend of fairy tale movie ideas. Or it it’s an obvious attempt to cash on the fact that Hollywood is pushing Nicolas Hoult as an up and coming film star.

Or it’s an attempt to get butts into seats by making Stantly Tucci a villain and Ewan McGregor a dashing knight.

It certainly got my butt into a seat for that last reason.

Pros: It’s cute, there’s a lot of great actors in it (Stanely Tucci and Ewan McGregor for starters).

Cons: The main characters are on this side of boring, it’s long (the second act drags much longer than necessary), and what the hell happened to Jack’s uncle???

Yay or Nay? If you’re okay spending money on a movie that has a fairly weak plot, slightly useless main characters, and that critics enjoy but the public doesn’t ($25 millon opening weekend on a $200 million dollar film? Uh oh), then go right ahead.